


Duties & Obligations

by galacticdrift (Ancalime)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime/pseuds/galacticdrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Janine has all of maybe seven neighbors in a 15-mile radius, and every last one is a country bumpkin that grates on her something fierce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duties & Obligations

It wasn't so much the isolation that got to Janine over time, but rather the severely constrained -- and nosy -- social circle.

 _Isolated posting_ , they said. _Minimal human interaction_ , they said. She jumped at it. They didn't warn her that the minimal human interaction would be with the same seven people, over and over again. She was locked in a neverending war; the locals constantly trying to pry into her life and Janine constantly trying to give them as little as she could get away with.

\--

Mr. Samson, the milkman, asked after her family at least once or twice a week. The farm had been 'owned' by the same old couple for at least two decades before they both passed away, both within the space of a single year.

Her cover story for moving into the farmhouse was that she had been their niece by an estranged sister, so Mr. Samson thought he would do the proper neighborly thing by telling her all about the habits of the previous owners.

 _Basil -- that were the late Mr. Williams -- he always liked early morning walks_ , Mr. Samson said, _and all through the spring and summer he would bring back flowers for Bianca -- that was your mum's sister Mrs. Williams_.

(Janine still wasn't sure, in her heart, if she wanted more to believe that they'd died under suspicious circumstances, or that they had been one of those couples where one partner loses the will to live after the other dies. Evidence did rather seem to indicate the latter.)

\--

The mother and daughter who ran the small post office nearby (for a generous estimate of the term 'nearby,' four miles as the crow flew if it was an inch) recognized her the first time she stopped in, and every time after that.

Though Janine had never once seen two customers in the post office in the entire time she was posted at Abel, Mrs. and Ms. Hughes made sure to tell her about all the latest goings-on in the area whenever she had to mail a package. This meant that every month when Janine printed out hard copies of her reports and packaged them up to send back to The Home Office for backup filing, she waited through interminable minutes of news as one or the other Williams typed up the necessary forms on a PC that Janine suspected was older than her.

_You've met Peter Smith, that sheep farmer who owns all that land west of yours, haven't you? Well his prize ram has taken sick -- he had to call out the local veterinarian, on a Sunday morning no less! If he loses that ram he'll have to either get a new one or finally settle his feud with that Samuel Edgeworth further on down the valley._

\--

Not only had she met Peter Smith, but he had in fact been a thorn in her side from day one. He'd been out tending his flock or something and seen her small hatchback pull up to the farm, trailer in tow. They exchanged a wave, which in Peter's mind had been sufficient introduction for him to come by that very evening with a bottle of wine to 'welcome her to the neighborhood.'

No matter how firm she was in her rejection of his clumsy advances, he kept dropping by unannounced, which was damned inconvenient during her first few weeks when she needed to take a full inventory of the underground bunker to make sure nothing had gone missing under the care of the previous residents.

She'd been able to make excuses for her presumed absences by saying she'd been out walking in the fields, or runing an errand to the post office or the grocer or one of the handful of other small shops within a fifteen-mile radius. Eventually Peter's unannounced visits grew less frequent, though she could still count on seeing him once a month or so. It wasn't _all_ bad, she supposed; sometimes he would try to woo her with gifts from his farm.

One brisk late-autumn day, he'd left a pair of woollen mittens on her doorstep, wrapped up in plain brown paper with a note saying folk from the city weren't always prepared for winter in the countryside. Janine had brought gloves with her, and the very concept that English winter would be anything near enough to faze her was an insult -- but she couldn't deny that the mittens were both effective and practical.

\--

Not only did the three staff at the tiny, cramped grocer also immediately recognize her the first time she walked in, they insisted on commenting regularly on the family resemblance between her and Bianca Williams. Janine lost track of the number of times she gritted her teeth and smiled, bland and polite, as Geoffrey exclaimed over how her hairline was _just_ like dear Bianca's, or _oh_ , Diane said, _you even sign your receipts the same way she did, look at those loops_.

The three grocery employees were happy to take her requests for specialty items, though Janine tried not to make too many requests so as not to stand out among their customers. Little did it help, she realized in short order, as the drama the locals attributed to her paper-thin fabricated history had turned it into a thing of legend throughout the area. She was forced to flesh out the cover story she’d been provided, filling in details here and there in such a way as to make the story seem realistic without, she hoped, being too memorably dramatic.

\--

The activation order came on a day like any other. Cold, a biting wind blowing down from the north, but Janine had to ride her bicycle to the post office to mail her monthly record drop.

 _Some sort of stir going on down in London, I reckon_ , the young Ms. Hughes said. _Wouldn't suggest you head in to the city anytime soon, some of my mates are saying everything's gone arse over tits down there_.

Her voice was even, a little amused even by the antics of the city folk, but something about her words raised the hackles on Janine's neck. She barely listened to the rest of the regular update on Peter's sheep and the veterinarian, and the surprise olive branch offer from Samuel Edgeworth, who everyone had thought would hold a grudge until the end of time itself.

When she got back to the farmhouse, there was a red light beeping on the machine that looked to any normal person like an ordinary answering machine. Janine tucked her woollen mittens into her pockets and let herself into the bunker to face an uncertain future.


End file.
